The awards ceremony for the 2010 European Week for Waste Reduction took place last Monday March 28, 2011 in Brussels before roughly 200 attendees, including the Brussels-Capital Region Minister for the Environment Evelyne Huytebroeck and several representatives of the European Commission and the LIFE+ Programme.

The awards ceremony for the 2010 European Week for Waste Reduction took place on Monday March 28, 2011 in Brussels before roughly 200 attendees, including the Brussels-Capital Region Minister for the Environment Evelyne Huytebroeck and several representatives of the European Commission and the LIFE+ Programme.
From 20 – 28 November 2010, 4,346 EWWR actions took place in 24 countries throughout Europe and beyond with the common aim to promote waste reduction. Out of these, 90 were pre-selected by the various organisers and submitted to an independent jury made up of European waste management specialists.
Six awards were handed out to the most outstanding actions: one for each of the five Project Developer categories plus the Jury’s Favourite Award. They were handed out by Mr. William Neale, member of the Cabinet of the EU Commissioner for the Environment Mr. Janez Poto?nik. Mr Poto?nik had planned to attend, but was prevented from attending the ceremony by other commitments. He expressed his support to the EWWR through a video message that was shown at the end of the Ceremony.
And the winners are:
  • Administration & public authority: Better than new: 100% old campaign - Environmental Authority of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (Catalonia, Spain) - A broad waste prevention campaign carried out across the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, which promotes various strategies, including repair and reuse, responsible consumption, preference for tap water and composting.
  • Association & NGO: Responsible purchase - Ecoscience Provence (France) - A campaign implemented in collaboration with several supermarkets to encourage consumers to reduce waste by purchasing products with less packaging.
  • Business & industry: Reduction of glass packaging in the wine sector - Cordoniu Group (Catalonia, Spain) - A project that proved it is possible to reduce the weight of the glass in cava (sparkling wine) bottles by 11%, thus reducing the amount of waste and CO2 emissions, without negative impact on sales.
  • Educational establishment: Food Waste Reduction Challenge - St Mary’s Episcopal Primary School (Scotland, UK) - A project to reduce the amount of food and packaging wasted from lunches served from the school canteen and packed lunches that the children bring from home by collecting and weighing waste at the end of every lunchtime.
  • Other: Malta Reuse Map - Elisa Andretti (with the support of the University of Malta) (Malta) - A project to create a sustainable market for reclaimed building materials in Malta, and to provide an instrument which could promote the creativity of people through the use of dismissed materials while raising awareness about the use of our limited resource and how this can also reduce waste.
  • The Jury’s favourite: Waste Watchers - AERESS (Spain), in collaboration with RREUSE (European Coordination) - The Spanish branch of a pan-European initiative, which consists in collecting old items no longer wanted by their owners and reselling them in reuse centres that weigh and communicate the amount of items they sell, i.e. the amount of waste avoided.
Congratulations to the winners and to all the 2010 EWWR participants for making waste reduction a reality!

You can watch a video illustrating the EWWR actions carried out in Europe and beyond in 2010. More information about nominees, finalists and winners will soon be published on the case studies and good practices page. You can also download a full press file in the press area.

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